Happy Saturday, friends. Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we very quickly sum up the most read TechCrunch stories from the past week. Want it in your inbox every Saturday AM? Get it here.
This week saw two big events running in parallel: an Apple hardware announcement and Y Combinator’s Demo Day. Either one of those on their own would generally lead our traffic for the week — having them smash into each other on the same day was … interesting. And maybe a little exhausting.
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The Apple stuff: Apple’s event, as their events tend to do, mostly dominated the tech news cycle this week. Rather than turn this entire newsletter into one big list of Apple things, I’ll just say: new iPhones, new AirPods, and a beefy new Apple Watch. Want more words than that? Here’s our roundup of the news.
Y Combinator moonshots: Startups are hard. But every YC batch has at least a handful of companies that seem a little extra hard — the moonshots, if you will. From faux fish to teams that want to reinvent flying, the Demo Day team rounded up some of the wildest pitches.
Musk/Twitter drama continues: Elon Musk is still aiming to undo his multibillion-dollar offer for Twitter, and Twitter still wants to hold him to it. This week a Delaware judge made two decisions in the ordeal: The trial will not be delayed by a month as Musk’s legal team had requested, but Musk will be allowed to “amend his counterclaim with details” disclosed by Twitter security whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko earlier this month.
LG wants you to buy NFTs on your TV: NFT sales have reportedly tanked over the last few months. Will the ability to buy/sell/trade NFTs on LG smart TVs be the thing that turns that around? No, no, it will not.
Kim Kardashian’s new gig: “America’s favorite reality star is leveling up her repertoire,” writes Anita, with another job title: private equity investor. Kardashian is teaming up with Jay Sammons, formerly the head of Consumer/Media/Retail at the Carlyle Group, to launch a new private equity firm called SKKY Partners.
Jeep’s EVs: Another legendary auto brand is diving deep into electric vehicles — this time it’s Jeep, which this week revealed plans to roll out three different EVs (the Recon, Wagoneer S, and Avenger) by 2025. The company, notes Jaclyn, expects “EVs to compose half of its sales in North America — and all of its sales in Europe — by 2030.”
Patreon layoffs: Patreon, a company that helps creators build out paid membership offerings, laid off employees this week. The layoffs purportedly leave Patreon without much of a security team, which seems … not ideal?
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin
audio roundup
What’s up in TC podcast land this week? “Selling Sunset” star Christine Quinn stopped by Found to tell ’em about her new startup, the Chain Reaction crypto crew talked about the latest drama at Binance, and Burnsy took a virtual trip to Minnesota to put the spotlight on the Minneapolis startup scene for TechCrunch Live.
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Want 15% off an annual TechCrunch+ subscription? Use promo code “WIR” when signing up. Just want to know what TC+ readers were reading most this week? Here’s the breakdown:
YC Demo Day favs: Nearly 230 pitches later, which Y Combinator S22 companies stood out to the Demo Day team? Here are their favorite pitches from Day 1 and Day 2.
The most important slides in your pitch deck: Reporter/former VC/resident pitch deck expert Haje shares his insights on which of the perhaps-too-many slides in your deck are most crucial.
The freemium bar is shifting: Across products from Slack to Google Meet to Heroku, many companies are shifting up their free tiers to offer less. Why now? Anita explores the trend.
The week an Apple event and YC Demo Day collided by Greg Kumparak originally published on TechCrunch
The week an Apple event and YC Demo Day collided
Архив метки: LG
Rollables are the new foldables
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Smartphone sales are bad — and have been for a couple of years now. Certainly this ongoing pandemic hasn’t helped. All the talk about how 5G and new form factors were going to cause a kind of bounce-back all fell by the wayside, as people put a pause on unnecessary luxuries.
Samsung is the only company that’s seen some success with the foldable form factor, and that whole thing got off to a…rough start. There were plenty of technical issues at first, leading to a less than auspicious first impression. These days, price continues to be a major hurdle — especially during a time when paying $1,000 and up on a phone is a major red flag for many.
In the world of phone form factors, two is, at the very least, the start of a trend. And on day one of CES both LG and TCL have offered their take on yet another form factor designed to offer more screen real estate in pocketable devices.
Image Credits: TCL
LG’s product is — for the moment — the more notable of the two, largely because the company plans to actually release the thing. In an interview published this morning, spokesperson Ken Hong told Nikkei, “As it is released at CES 2021, I can tell that it will be launched this year.”
And, indeed, LG’s a company not afraid to take chances with a wacky form factor. There are a number of examples of the phenomenon in recent years, most notably the swiveling screen on the LG Wing.
Still, the product didn’t amount to much more than a brief tease during a press conference (an excuse to transition between scenes, really), so you’d be forgiven for assuming that the tech still has a long way to go.
TCL, meanwhile, noted up front that the product is still firmly in the concept phase, but managed to give us a better look. I suppose it’s easier to parade concept than an unfinished real-world product. Details are still slim, but the company says the device is capable of expanding from 6.7 to 7.8 inches.
One imagines — or, at least, hopes — that the industry has learned from the issues stemming from the first batch of foldables. Sometimes the race to bring technology to market results in delivering something half-baked, an issue that came back to bite companies like Samsung and Motorola. Lab testing is one thing — the real world is a different thing entirely.
An already struggling smartphone market takes a big hit from COVID-19
Quarter after quarter, familiar stories have appeared. The smartphone market, once seemingly bulletproof, has suffered. The list of factors is long, and I’ve written about them ad nauseam here, but the CliffsNotes version is: costs are too high, innovation is too incremental and most people already own a device that will be plenty good for the next few years.
But 2020 was going to be different. Smartphone makers were set to finally give consumers a reason to upgrade in the form of 5G. The first handsets appeared in earnest last year, but between a much wider carrier roll out, lower-cost 5G radios from Qualcomm and the arrival of a 5G iPhone, this was going to be the year the next-gen wireless technology helped reverse the smartphone slide.
And then COVID-19 disrupted everything. For many of us, life is on hold — and will likely continue to be for months. I’m writing this from my home in Queens, N.Y., the hardest-hit county in the hardest-hit country in the world. It still feels strange to type that, even though it’s been a reality for a month and half now.
Purchasing a smartphone is most likely the last thing on anyone’s mind during what is shaping up to be the worst global pandemic since the 1918 flu pandemic. With a number of key manufacturers reporting quarterly earnings this week, the numbers are starting to bear out this disconnect. Earlier this week, both Samsung and LG reported weak mobile numbers. Yesterday, Apple reported revenue of $28.96 billion, down from $31.1 billion the same time last year.
More troubling, all three companies appeared to be united in suggesting that the worst might be yet to come. Samsung suggested that both mobile and TV demand would “decline significantly” in the following quarter. LG used virtually the same exact wording, stating that, “market demand is expected to decline significantly YoY due to COVID-19 pandemic.” For its part, Apple simply didn’t issue guidance for the next quarter, a surefire indication of uncertainty in these uncertain times — to borrow a phrase from every commercial airing currently.
An already struggling smartphone market takes a big hit from COVID-19
5G devices were less than 1% of US smartphone purchases in 2019
No surprise, really, that 5G smartphone sales are on the way up. Frankly, there’s really no other way to go, according to the latest numbers from NPD’s Mobile Phone Tracking. The firm noted that 5G handsets accounted for less than 1% of total sales in the U.S.
The hurdles are also what you’d expect: namely, pricing and the lack of 5G availability. There’s also the fact that for much of 2019, there simply weren’t that many phones to purchase. When the devices did start arriving from companies like LG, Samsung and OnePlus, the numbers started trending upward, with an increase of roughly 9x from the first to the second half of the year.
Awareness, too, increased notably. Some nine in 10 surveyed consumers in the U.S. had some familiarity with 5G in the second half of the year, up from 73% in the first half. Meanwhile, 65% expressed “interest” in purchasing the tech. How that translates to actual sales, however, is another question entirely.
That should improve as the price of manufacturing these devices comes down, thanks to lower-cost components from companies like Qualcomm. And in markets like the U.S., 5G coverage will be greatly expanded by year’s end, making it a much more appealing purchase. And, of course, never underestimate the impact of Apple’s first 5G iPhone.
Smartphone manufacturers have very much been banking on the increased interest in 5G to help correct the larger trend of flagging sales.
Of course, it remains to be seen how COVID-19 will impact sales. It seems safe to assume that, like every aspect of our lives, there will be a notable impact on the number of people buying expensive smartphones. Certainly things like smartphone purchases tend to lessen in importance in the face of something like a global pandemic.
5G devices were less than 1% of US smartphone purchases in 2019
As top exhibitors pull out of MWC, organizers implement stringent safeguards
A couple of weeks out, Mobile World Congress organizer, the GSMA, has issued some fairly sweeping safeguards over growing concerns around the coronavirus. After a number of high profile back outs, including ZTE, LG, NVIDIA and Ericsson, the company issued a new list, including a ban of visitors originating from the Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is believed to be the origin of the epidemic.
Per GSMA CEO John Hoffman,
All travelers from the Hubei province will not be permitted access to the event
All travelers who have been in China will need to demonstrate proof they have been outside of China 14 days prior to the event (passport stamp, health certificate)
Temperature screening will be implemented
Attendees will need to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone infected.
[Updated] LG withdraws from MWC due to coronavirus-related concerns
More than 800 people have died from the virus, surpassing the 774 people who were killed by SARS circa 2002-2003. Hoffman adds that the organizer will be increasing a disinfectant program around the site and promoting a “no handshake policy.” As the organization notes, some 5,000-6,000 people from China attend the show each year, accounting for around 5-6 percent of visitors.
The GSMA is clearly interested in addressing concerns over the virus, while limiting further attendee or exhibitor erosion. The release quotes Catalan health minister Alba Vergés, who notes, “The Catalan health system is prepared to detect and treat coronavirus, to give the most appropriate response, and this must be clear to those attending MWC Barcelona.”
As top exhibitors pull out of MWC, organizers implement stringent safeguards